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Conquest
Among the proudest expressions of Khadoran martial determination, the Conquest is a walking mountain of steel bristling with some of the most powerful weapons ever used on the battlefields of the Iron Kingdoms. It advances slowly but inexorably, weighed down by impenetrable armor and boasting the firepower of a mobile artillery battery. The deafening roar of the colossal’s steam-fed engine is punctuated by the staggering percussion of its devastating guns, which unleash a punishing hail of shells able to reduce warjacks to slag and render the ground impassable.Forces of Warmachine: Khador Command MK3 The Conquest began as a triumph of espionage by the Prikaz Chancellery of the Greylords Covenant. Agents within Caspia in the employ of the chancellery discovered a massive project underway there. A number of detailed schematics were secured and brought to Great Vizier Simonyev Blaustavya, who discerned the impending birth of a new colossal—and a grave threat to Khador. It took little effort for Blaustavya and the supreme kommandants to convince Empress Vanar to meet the new danger with a colossal of their own. The empress decreed that not only would the Motherland field its own colossals, but the machines would be completed before Cygnar’s. Plans for the Conquest were laid out in a matter of weeks. Both the empress and the great vizier used their formidable presence and political clout to quash all potential opposition, transforming the cost and challenge of the project into a mechanism for gaining favor and prestige. The Greylords Covenant, Khadoran Mechaniks Assembly, and numerous kayazy soon vied for recognition. Though they all received credit for the effort to some extent, the KMA was ultimately recognized as the primary architect of the Conquest due in large part to the political currency and immutable vision of Simonyev Blaustavya. Given the difficult task of completing the project ahead of Cygnar, Blaustavya quickly arranged for the colossal’s components to be fabricated in numerous factories and workshops across several major cities, particularly Ohk, Khardov, and Korsk. He also modified the Cygnaran arcanum supernum cortex to account for his country’s dearth of several vital rare minerals required for its refined metal alloys. This Khadoran variant cortex was less sophisticated, but it could be built quickly and more cheaply. The engineers and mechaniks tasked with designing the Conquest rose to the challenge of devising weapons powerful enough to be worthy of the colossal without requiring the same degree of cortex supervision. Ultimately, they looked to the massive guns of the Khadoran Navy’s ironhull warships, whose enormous turrets boasted cannons designed to be fired in tandem, the recoil of one being used to reload the other. This principle proved crucial, as it prevented the need for the Conquest’s cortex to regulate reloading. The main guns were supplemented by two sets of twin-linked cannons mounted in the colossal’s shoulders/ It soon became clear that the raw materials needed to build the Conquest would be a burden, but the leadership indulged no compromises. Thousands of citizens in Korsk and Khardov went without coal for a winter, and hundreds froze to death— an unfortunate but necessary sacrifice made to fuel the foundries required to smelt ore for the Conquest’s hull. During production, laborers worked around the clock, some dying of exhaustion or in accidents brought on by fatigue. The combined efforts resulted in a resounding victory. The first operational Conquest paraded through the Khadoran capital for the benefit of the people and the empress weeks before the debut of the Cygnaran Stormwall. With such a clear symbol of their unrivaled superiority, the Khadorans unleashed the first Conquests upon those who would deny them their right to empire. References Category:Warmachine Category:Khador Category:Colossal Category:Warjack